Antoine Harris is a the beginning of his rise to fame and we couldn’t be happier for him! The handsome breakout star from VH1’s hit show, The Breaks, is melting hearts and opening minds everywhere and we wanted to find out the secrets behind the famous Ahm stare! Who is Antoine Harris and what was he doing, before he was a star?

The New York native, who graduated from Virginia Tech is a published poet, a songwriter managed by Jermaine Dupri and an accomplished actor with 3 hit shows under his belt. But, most importantly, he is kind, humble, religious and not afraid to speak up for what is right. Watch and read the interview below to get to know Mr. Harris, who is a Talent on the Rise and officially one of our favorite people! And scroll down to the bottom to watch him answer some crazy fan comments! It’s hilarious!

How does it feel to have your first leading role on a television series?

“What you put in is definitely what you get out. Especially if you’re a good person and you’re not trying to dampen anybody else’s Blessings. If you’re just kind of focusing on yours and sharpening your lane, things come into fruition. So, the way it feels to have a lead role now, it’s a Blessing to be totally honest with you. To be working on a show is a Blessing. It’s a lot of fun and a lot of responsibility. I want to do the best I can do to feel like in my brain I may a little bit deserve this. It’s a Blessing and an honor especially to be working on a project that you care about. Because I would be a leading man on a project that I didn’t care about, if I’m keeping it funky! Just to be working! You know what I’m saying?!”

When you decided you wanted to become and actor, what was your journey to success like?

“I started modeling, I got signed to Boss models and I figured that would put me in rooms with people I wouldn’t normally be in rooms with. From that, I heard about background work. I was an extra on so many projects. But, what I got from it was, I was able to sit 10 feet from Denzel on a 12 hour day! That was my acting class. I got to see him work, I got to see Meryl Streep I got to see these giants work first hand. How they deal with the director, how they deal with the script, how they deal with the security team, how they deal with the extras. That was key for me. I did that for about 2 years. Then I did theater. I was in Jim Jones’ play [off Broadway]. Then from that a director from a studio liked me and put me in a whole bunch of his plays. So, I did theater, that was really my training, that and a lot of reading. And that whole process was about 4 or 5 years. And then I got a little indie film called Game Time. Meanwhile, while I’m doing this, synonymously I’m doing music. I’m actually a songwriter. So, throughout this whole process I had 2 of my passions fuel me. When one wasn’t paying any bills, I was lucky enough that the other one was paying a few of them. And now it’s to the point where they’re balancing each other out, but both of them were a 10 year journey. Then, I got Ballers, then I got The Breaks, then I got Power and that kind of all happened within 2 or 3 years.”

How did you become a songwriter?

“I’m a published poet. Nikki Giovanni was my teacher at Tech. She’s like my mentor. She’s a close friend of mine and she published me in the 100 Greatest African American poems. So from that, she was like you should be a rapper. Which is crazy cause she was friends with Afeni Shakur. Her and Pac were like this. And she said I had a lot of things that reminded her of him. And she was like, you should be a rapper. And I was like, I don’t know about rap, but I like to write songs. And she was like, you need to keep pushing that pen. And that kind of led to the songwriting thing.”

I can honestly say out of the hundreds of people I’ve interviewed, Antoine Harris is one of the nicest. We wish him enormous success on both his acting and songwriting career! You can catch Antoine on Monday nights on VH1 on The Breaks, or go On Demand and watch The Breaks the movie, or Season 1 of HBO’s Ballers to get your Antoine fix! Check out the interview below where he answers fan comments and Subscribe to my channel!